Re: LYNX-DEV Re: #38 -- another quickie

[Klaus Weide]

[To the list:  
This is about the extent Tom's modifications of the ncurses/curses
code will (or should) support various versions of (n)curses.
Tom states that ncurses1.9.9e, the most widespread version in use
in recent linux distributions, is broken in several ways.]

On Thu, 3 Apr 1997, T.E.Dickey wrote:
[kw:]
> > > > You may have good reasons to not support that version (and of course you
> > > > have no obligation to support *anything*), but at least don't break 
> > > > things
> > > > that currently work for folks with a "broken" ncurses version.
[Tom:]
> > > the configure script for Lynx isn't broken - it merely passes over
> > > (does not acknowledge) that 1.9.9e does color 
[kw:]
> > But is that reasonable?
> > I think it is not.
> > (Or call the simple-color-curses stuff
> > simple-color-for-only-a-few-selected-curses-versions instead.)
[Tom:]
> nope. color for System V release 4 curses (the X/Open spec).  Perhaps
> extend it to SVr3 curses, which (at least in the form of PDCurses) implements
> color in a different manner.

The normal linux user, including somebody compiling lynx on linux,
will not be aware of the level of compliance of his/her ncurses version
with some spec with an obscure (to many) name or acronym.  I certainly
wasn't.

So if the plan is to not support "(simple) color" with a very popular and
widely used incarnation of ncurses -- Ok, but state it clearly then,
in a way that people not familiar with details of ncurses history and
conformance details etc. will understand.  Otherwise people will *expect*
ncurses-color for lynx to work with their version of ncurses.  Not an
unreasonable expectation since many color programs *do* work with
ncurses1.9.9e or similar.

Tose users (installers) of lynx will then either install a newer
(hopefully, not-so-broken) ncurses library, or continue to look to slang
for color support.

> (do you guys still support bug reports against Lynx 2.5 -- there's a lot
> more copies of _that_ floating around than 2.6 or 2.7)

That is not an appropriate comparison.  We are not talking about whether
and to what degree newer versions of ncurses should support bugs in 
earlier versions.  We are talking about a separate program here, the
application "Lynx", and to what degree it should be able to cope with
"imperfections" (bugs) of other software.  Other software over which Lynx
has no control, but with which it has to interoperate.  I think Lynx has a
very good track record in that respect.  Also if you apply the term
"software" not just to program libraries, but include broken HTML pages,
broken and protocol-violating servers and scripts, and so on.

  Klaus



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